


Trial Period

by MoonshineEvelyn



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Divorce, F/F, F/M, Faith of the Seven, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Modern Westeros, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Sandor Clegane, Past Abuse, Sandor has a potty mouth, Tags May Change, Unrequited Love, it is known
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-12 19:12:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19235368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonshineEvelyn/pseuds/MoonshineEvelyn
Summary: Modern Westeros AUFive years ago, Sandor Clegane and Sansa Stark married hastily in a sept. At the moment, it was their last resort. A month later, Sansa packed her bags and left.Now, Sansa is back and she wants a divorce.The Faith of the Seven deems the couple to have lived together for too short a period to be completely out of love and gives them two weeks to rekindle or divorce if they can't. Thus begins their trial period.Or,Our favorite couple absolutely hate each other but have to spend two weeks under the same roof. Angst ensues.Ft Grumpy!Sandor and Sweet!Sansa





	1. Destined to Fail

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Guess who's back lol. 
> 
> Sansa is currently 25 and Sandor is 35.
> 
> Tags will change with each chapter. I am doing this so that I don't reveal too much. *evil laugh*
> 
> Also, I plan on keeping this fic around 10 chapters. Let's hope I can keep my word.

"What do you want, woman?" he snarled the moment he recognized the figure behind the door.  
  
"Let me in. We need to talk." she said, her hands crossed in front of her, the finger of her left hand tapping impatiently. He had enough of her ‘talk’ all those years ago.  
  
"I think the fuck not." he said and attempted to bang the door close on her face.  
  
She smacked her palm on the wood of the door and he glared at her incredulity.  
  
"It's about the divorce, Sandor. We need to talk.” She insisted.  
  
_Fuckin' Hell!_  
  
……………………………  
  
"Now that you have downed the glass of water, care to tell me what the fuck is going on?" He was seething. When she left, he kept the hope of her coming back alive in his heart. He assumed it to be momentary anger. He didn’t believe that when she left, she would be able to survive on her own. She had to come back. She had to come back to him.  
  
And she never did. She didn’t come back.  
  
And here she was now. Knocking at his front door, asking to be let in. Even now, the first thing she wanted to talk about what the fucking divorce.  
  
She wiped her lip delicately with her thumb and kept the glass on the table beside her. Her legs were clasped tightly in that skirt she wore and she looked immaculate. Like a soccer mom. Pretentious, that was the word for it.  
  
"Well, I um, I went to the courthouse the other day....for some work. And the clerk there told me that we were still married. He said that you never filed for a divorce."  
  
"Well of course I didn't. You were the one who stomped out of this house. You were the one who left. Something about me being an 'insufferable bastard' and our arrangement being 'destined to fail'" he imitated her voice by making his voice annoyingly high pitched and the look of displeasure she shot at him thrilled his core and gave him a twisted sort of satisfaction. "You should have filed for the fucking divorce if you wanted it so much."  
  
"Don't you dare put it all on me, Sandor Clegane! Both of us agreed that our....arrangement was short term."  
  
He snorted at her. 'Short term'. Of course it was 'short term' for her.  
  
"Whatever, Little Bird. Since you are so eager to get rid of me, go file those papers. I will sign wherever they ask me to. And since everything is so 'short term' for you, I hope your stay today is too. Goodbye." He said and moved past her towards the staircase.  
  
"You have to come down with me, Sandor. They need us both to be there."  
  
He rolled his eyes and groaned at her. Why couldn’t she do this on her own? “Fine” he gritted between his teeth.  
  
"My car is right outs-"  
  
"Fuck no! I ain't driving in your stupid car. Get in mine." he said, grabbing the keys off the hook by the door and walking away towards the car. There was no point in changing. Let the courthouse see how pathetic he was. That is ragged jeans and stained tee and her polished high end workplace attire didn’t fit together. Let the courthouse see _exactly_ why they weren’t meant to be.  
  
"Do you not need to lock the door?" she asked behind him.  
  
"Changed the locks a year ago. Besides, no one's going to take anything from my place." he said and muttered to himself under his breath. "Everything of value has been taken away from me anyway."  
  
.........................  
  
He kept sneaking glances at her. She had changed. Physically, for sure. Bigger tits, longer hair, better shaped waist. A vision. To be fair, when he took her away, she wasn’t the most taken care of. Her waist had been too narrow, her bones prominent, her hair brittle and her face just constantly tired. Now her skin was better, her face more shapely. The sharp, high cheekbones didn’t look haunting now that her cheeks weren’t hollow and her eyes weren’t caked with dark circles.  
  
"So, um, how have you been, uh, doing?"  
  
He snorted. Still a little bird then. Dutifully asking him about his life. As though she didn’t completely wreck him by walking out the door.  
  
"You don't need to make conversation. We go to the court. Get a divorce. And go separate ways. You don't have to be nice, Little Bird."  
  
"It's just a question, Sandor. Don't need to get worked up on it." she muttered and turned to look out of the window.  
  
_Worked up?_ Worked up? She left him. Left. Him. And now she was going to waltz in here and ask him how he was doing?  
  
"Aye? Why? What do you want to know about, what did you call it that day, 'my animal life'? You wanna know about all the horse shit I have to clean daily? You want to hear about that with your shitty upper class mentality? You want to hear about how your _husband_ works with animals instead of being a lawyer or an accountant or an investor? Huh?" By the end of his rant, he could practically feel clouds of smoke erupt from his ears. Fuck. Why was he so worked up about this woman?  
  
"Don't say it like that, Sandor. You know I never had a problem with your work. I respected the hard labour you put into your work every day."  
  
"Aye. Respected it so much that you fucking walked out just like that!" he snarled, almost losing control of the car. The car swerved off the lane and her hands shot out to grasp the dashboard. He tightened his grip on the wheel and steered the car on the right path.  
  
Sansa clutched the dashboard with white knuckles. "Focus on the road. Yell at me later."  
  
"Don't tell me what to fucking do." he snapped at her, focusing on the road nonetheless.  
  
…………………………  
  
“Ah I see.” The man said sagely. Well, calling him a man would be a blatant insult to any able-bodied person out there. A corpse, that’s what he resembled. Every inch of his skin was sagging and he looked like he was a day away from death. The Stranger himself was probably his next appointment. Of course that it what happened when you chose a career at the citadel as a lawyer and then spent decades working with the Faith only to become a Family Lawyer of the Seven at the end of it all.  
  
“And you both subscribe to the Faith of the Seven?”  
  
Fuck. He took ages to spit out a sentence. He leaned back in the chair, a hand on his forehead, contemplating his decision of coming here.  
  
“Well, I also subscribe to the Old Gods too but the marriage was done under the Faith of the Seven rituals in a small sept.” Sansa described with utmost patience while Sandor sat there wondering if he could shake the last remaining energy from the man and get him to fucking approve of the divorce.  
  
“Hmm.” The man hummed and sipped his tea at the pace of a turtle. “Your situation is complicated, my children. You both barely lived together for, what was it,” he ruffled through the papers in front of him. “Ah, yes, you lived together for 73 days and then separated. You barely even settled down before separating. It is a delicate matter. I cannot truly assign that you aren’t compatible before I permit you to seek divorce.” He nodded sadly.  
  
Fuck his sagging balls. “What part of a marriage that lasted 73 days seem compatible to you, old hag?” Sandor asked.  
  
The man gasped dramatically and Sansa moved ahead in her seat.  
  
“What he meant was that….we aren’t compatible, your honor. We have….a lot of differences. We have both moved on in life.”  
  
“If you have so much of difference, why did you get married in the first place?” the man asked.  
  
The man and the woman hesitated, glancing around the room, evading the searching eyes of the man seated in front of them.  
  
“There must have been some bond that solidified your relationship back then. And the way I see it, it would be wrong to leave it completely unacknowledged.”  
  
“What do you suggest we do, your honour?” Sansa asked with a sigh.  
  
The man opened a thick book and began ruffling through the pages, his corpse-y fingers tracing the words. The man took his sweet time hanging the fate of the young couple uncertain. After a while, he proclaimed victory.  
  
“Ah there it is. Yes. Unrequited love. You must spend two weeks under the same roof. Live in the same house, sleep on the same bed, share your grief and your celebrations. A marriage is a bond held to the highest of sanctity by the Faith. We do not want young couples to see instances like yours as an example and lose their faith in love. I grant you two weeks to spend time in amicable company, perhaps talk some of your issues out. If by the end of it, you still want to end your relationship, the Faith of the Seven will process a request for divorce.”  
  
The room fell into silence a second before both man and woman began speaking over each other.  
  
“Your honour, please you don’t understand…..”  
  
“Aint no way in fuck I am living with her again…..”  
  
“Please your honour, I have unfinished business back at….”  
  
“See! She wants to leave already! Again! Let her fucking go, you corpse….”  
  
“Please, your honour, I can’t stay here for two weeks…”  
  
The man very easily let their requests fill the room as he raised his stamp and banged it on the paper, the red of the stamp a stark contrast to the monotone black and white of the paper.  
  
**REQUEST DENIED.**  



	2. Living Arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you live with someone you used to love not long back?
> 
> You push them away and piss them off obviously.
> 
> -Sandor Clegane, at some point probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit. This chapter is mostly a filler. Chapter 3 onwards is going to be one reveal after another. I initially wanted this fic to be simple but boi let me tell you; my brain has been coming up with good plotlines and I am bound to put it all down. I am so excited for you to read the next chapter. So while this chapter doesn't have too much happening, plot wise, there's a lot of minute details, so pay attention.

Sandor was washing the dishes, looking at Sansa sitting on the porch steps, speaking into the phone.  
  
She had been quite the whole way back, looking out of the window and chewing the corner of her thumb. A nervous habit from all those years ago. If Sandor wasn’t so mad himself, he’d smile at the nostalgia. When they had come home, she had stayed outside, saying that she needed to ‘settle some things’.  
  
Fucking hell. Now they were supposed to be living together? What an absolute nightmare.  
  
He had it all figured out, damn it! He had a schedule and everything. Between Podrick and Bronn and himself, he managed to take care of the animals. Podrick worked in the horse barn with him while Bronn and his wife Lollys took care of the cattle. Martha and Carla came around the evening to water the lands and do menial jobs. They were all good employees. Hard working and very productive and Sandor paid them well to keep them that way. With all his work, he didn’t have time for Sansa and her demands. He knew how hard he worked, how much his everyday job took a toll on his body and he wasn’t going to let her walk in, all heels and tight skirt and degrade everything he had built from scratch. He was not going to throw caution to the wind and roam behind her like a fucking puppy.  
  
He looked out. Her shoulders were slumped and her left hand held the phone to the ear, hiding her face from him while the right hand was cradling her forehead.  
  
What was she so upset about? He was the one whose life was getting disrupted.  
  
She was going to spend two weeks mooching off him and living under his roof, eating his food and…  
  
_Fuck! Don’t go down that road again._  
  
Sandor grumbled and got back to the dishes. Dinner was done and he just needed to clean few things around. He cleaned the counters and wiped them clean diligently. He glanced outside and she was still on her phone. Well, apparently, she had unlimited calling hours and couldn’t get enough of whoever she was talking to. But he had work to do. He couldn’t waste time around like her. He took a post-it and wrote **Gone to the barn** on it and stuck it to the fridge. He slipped his boots on, grabbed a green apple from the fridge and walked out the back door. A short walk bought him to the barns located in the rear of the property. His own cottage was big; big enough to accommodate several people but the horse barn was bigger. It had two main doors at the front and the back. There were twenty horse enclosures inside. Well, nineteen, now that he gave Stranger two enclosures all for himself. The other barn was recently built to accommodate the growing demand of cattle rearing. It was good, profitable business with organic meat being the trend today. He was considering opening a kennel. He liked dogs and maybe this way, he could finally bring his secret service codename to fruition. But it was a big financial decision and he wanted to be fully confident in his financial capacity before he made any major decisions of the sort.  
  
He walked past all the horse enclosures, glancing at each briefly. He nodded and called out the horses that he liked on the way. Arriving to the last one, he dug around in his pocket for the apple and held it in his hand and opened the door to the enclosure.  
  
“Hey boy” he whispered, holding the apple high for the horse, a reverential offering, if you will.  
  
The horse munched on the apple and Sandor moved around to pat the gleaming fur of the animal. He murmured soothing words into the horse’s ear.  
  
The animal was the only one allowed to see the gentle side of him.  
  
No one else ever did.  
  
No one else ever stuck around.  
  
Speaking of,  
  
“Still your favourite, huh?” Sansa said, behind him now.  
  
Sandor tensed immediately. Was she making fun of him? Suggesting that he could only make friends with an animal? After all that she had done?  
  
He moved away from Stranger, giving him a parting glance and shut the enclosure, ignoring the horse’s unappeased huffs.  
  
“Done talking?” he asked, not even looking back at her, pretending to do something with the door of Stranger’s enclosure.  
  
“You’ve done good stuff with this place, Sandor. All those years ago, you only had…”  
  
“Yeah well, when you don’t have much distractions, you can focus on work” he said, turning back just in time to notice her flinch.  
  
“I, um, uh, yeah, so-“  
  
“I need to go make dinner.”  
  
“Right, um, do you need help?”  
  
“No, I can do things on my own just fine” he said, pushing past her.  
  
He jogged down the path and groaned when he heard her following him closely. He went to the kitchen, bringing the pot of soup on boil while pulling the bread out of the oven, where he had kept for it to remain warm. He began placing the bread on the counter and noticed Sansa move beside him to stir the soup. He grabbed a bread knife and began slicing the bread and put two pieces on two plates and cut few extra slices and left them out for later. When the soup began boiling, Sansa grabbed two bowls from the overhead counter and began pouring ladles of soup and veggies into them. They arranged the food on the dining table silently. He pulled a beer out for himself.  
  
“Wine’s in the fridge, if you want some.” He suggested, seating himself on a chair.  
  
“I’ll have water, thanks.” She said and moved to sit on the chair across his. She bit into the bread and looked up at him.  
  
“Is that…..is that my recipe?”  
  
He winced. “Yeah.” He said, simply.  
  
So what if that had become a staple recipe for him? She didn’t have to know that.  
  
He scowled at her when she smiled and that kept her silent through the rest of the dinner.  
  
It was an unpleasant affair, to say the least.  
  
He ate hastily and once done, dumped his plate in the skin and threw out the beer bottle  
  
“Sheets and towels are in the closet. Unless the old sack of sanctimonious shit comes down from the court himself, ain’t no way in hell we are sleeping on the same bed. Feel free to use the guest bedroom.” He said and moved upstairs and shut the door to his firmly behind him and made a show of turning the lock, the clang of the metal loud in the silent house.  
  
…………………  
  
He woke up the next morning at the ass crack of dawn.  
  
As usual.  
  
After doing his business, he wore fresh clothes. Well, fresh considering that they were washed. He couldn’t work in the barn in designer clothes after all. He walked downstairs and noticed that the spare bedroom’s door was still locked and there was no noise around the house.  
  
The princess needed her sleep, it seems.  
  
He rolled his eyes and walked out the back.  
  
A pinkish hue was rising across the horizon and in an hour or so, he knew the sun would be out. This time of dawn was his favourite. There was dew on the grass out at the back and the wildlife around seemed to vibrate with energy. He saw Podrick pull his pickup by the side of the barn. He climbed out and waved his hand at Sandor, who merely rolled his eyes at the man’s juvenile enthusiasm. Podrick dug around the back of his car, lifted his bags and moved into the barn. Sandor stretched his arms and legs on the backyard and then moved towards the barn, already anticipating the long day ahead.  
  
He began cleaning one row of the barn while Podrick took over the other. In an hour, he head another car pull up. He walked out to Bronn and Lollys stepping out of their Chevy.  
  
“How you been, dog?” Bronn asked with an exaggerated drawl.  
  
Sandor smacked him on the shoulder while his wife made her way to him.  
  
“Made some pie yesterday. I’ll go keep it in the fridge and then get to work, yes?” He nodded at her and watched as she walked away.  
  
Sandor and Bronn discussed few details about work while Lollys made her way back to them.  
  
“Sandor?” she asked, “Do you know that there is a woman in your kitchen? Like, a human woman? Cooking and everything?”  
  
Sandor’s eyebrow raised to his hairline. “Cooking? That woman will burn the house down.” He said, rushing back towards the house. He opened the door and immediately began calling out her name.  
  
“Sansa? Where the fuck are you?”  
  
“In here” came her voice from the front.  
  
He hastily moved to the kitchen. She wore jeans and a flannel shirt, hair piled in a loose bun at the base of her neck. The house smelled like eggs. Cooked, not burnt eggs. He stopped in his tracts.  
  
“What do you think you are doing?”  
  
“Making us some breakfast.” She said casually.  
  
He moved around her and saw that she was making scrambled eggs. Few slices of the bread from last night were toasted and piled on two plates. She gently moved the spatula and curdled the eggs and switched off the burner and divided the eggs and placed them on the plate. Once done, she presented a plate to him with a soft .  
  
He kept staring at her, dumbstruck.  
  
The last time she tried cooking, there was copious amount of fire extinguisher involved.  
  
“You cook?” he asked, still unable to move.  
  
“Of course, yes.” She rolled her eyes softly and moved to place the plates on the dining table and moved towards the fridge and pulled out a box of juice. “I am twenty-five, Sandor. Of course, I cook.”  
  
“Not the last time I knew you, you couldn’t.” he muttered, placing himself on one of the seats.  
  
“That is not fair, Sandor.” She spoke, her voice shaking slightly. “I was twenty. I had never had to do anything on my own. It was unfair of you to ask me to do household chores when I-“  
  
“ _Unfair?_ Unfair? I saved your life!” he hissed at her.  
  
“I didn’t ask you to!” she yelled at him.  
  
“Oh well, I am sorry I took you away then, Princess. Should have left you there to die. Or worse, get beaten to death every day.”  
  
He saw her lower lip wobble. His voice got caught in his throat and for an instant, he felt bad about what he said. But then again, it wasn’t a lie, was it? He did save her. Saved her from hell. And she walked away from him.  
  
She squared her shoulder, a solitary tear rolling down her cheeks.  
  
“I will be eternally grateful to you for rescuing me. But that does not give you the right to mistreat me.” She took a deep breath and continued, “We only have to spend two weeks together. We don’t need to be joined at the hip. The whole point is to prove to the court that we are incompatible. So, I will keep out of your way. I have some things I need to take care of. Excuse me.” She said, drawing away from her chair and walking upstairs with the plate of food in her hand.  
  
He stared at her retreating form.  
  
She was right.  
  
Two weeks.  
  
They just had to live under the same roof for two weeks and not kill each other in the process.  
  
How hard could it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I told y'all how excited I am about chapter 3? A much hated character makes an appearance, in a way.


	3. Eavesdropping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did your mama never tell you not to eavesdrop?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please know that as I post this chapter, I am trying to stifle a large grin off my face. My coworkers are very confused as to why I am smiling at my desktop screen but what they don't know, can't hurt them. Amirite? ;)
> 
> Also, I love reading all you guys speculating in the comment. I feel so evil because I know exactly what's coming up and it makes me feel giddy to be able to sit and read everything you guys have to say. I have never been on this end of the tunnel and I LOVE IT! xD

He was helping Martha and Carla carry bags of hay to the store room beside the horse barn.  
  
Martha carried a bunch of her back and Carla on her shoulder. Martha gave a mock roar and barrelled into Carla, the woman running away from her partner’s attack. Sandor smiled, shaking his head at their antics. The women were driven away from their town because of their love and they chanced upon his house, looking for work. Sandor had offered them jobs and let them live in the second barn that had just been constructed and was still empty. They lived there for two months and then moved to a cottage nearby. They had become – close? Acquainted? friendly? – with Sandor since. They were hard working people. Earning their bread and butter by putting their all into the work. And they were dedicated in taking care of Sandor’s extensive lands.  
  
They dropped the stack by the entrance, leaving it up to Podrick to arrange them. They walked back to the truck, Carla telling him about her and Martha’s elaborate plans for the week.  
  
“-heard that that pub downtown played good music and has some offer on Wednesdays where they let the ladies have the first two glasses of drinks on the house so-“  
  
“Ooooooo mama” Martha drawled, her attention drawn to the Prius parked by the front steps of the house, Sansa stepping out of it in a thigh length dress that hugged her figure perfectly. The dress was a royal blue, a colour that brought out the darkness of her hair. Her entire being, with that dress and those killer black heels looked odd in comparison to where she had parked the car. She looked like she was ready to arrive at a posh restaurant, some man in her arm. She certainly didn’t look like she was going to _The Hound Barn_.  
  
She looked odd here. Like she didn’t belong.  
  
Like she didn’t belong in his life.  
  
He was brought back to the present by the wolf whistle Martha blew beside him, which earned her a sharp elbow to the gut from her girlfriend.  
  
“Watch it, Mar. Big boy Hound here will get jealous.” Carla waggled her blonde brows at him.  
  
“Shut it. Get back to work!” he ordered with a snap.  
  
The women merely shrugged at his attitude, having seen the worst of it many times over, now growing immune to it.  
  
Sansa must have noticed them because she gave a small wave and walked into the house. Sandor stayed rooted the spot for a while and then decided to walk away. He was certainly, absolutely _not_ drooling. He helped the women with their work and then bid them goodbye when they were done. Podrick and he then arranged the hay in the store room. As the last of the stack was placed, he looked around in satisfaction at the work they had completed. He slipped Podrick an envelope with half his monthly salary as a bonus for the week. The boy had been consistently staying at work for hours after he was supposed to, helping Sandor out with work. Podrick wasn’t a boy who spoke a lot. He had just turned nineteen and when he came to town a year ago, he was a runaway looking for some work and food. A year in, and he had a shelter over his head and a steady income but Sandor knew that at that stage, any financial help would be appreciated. Plus, no one worked under him without getting compensated for their hard work. Podrick gave him a big smile and then tucked the envelope away with a litany of “Thank you, Mr Clegane. You didn’t have to, Mr Clegane. This means a lot, Mr Clegane”. When he left, Sandor headed back to the house. He entered his house and breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
Ever since their _argument_ few days ago, Sansa had confined herself to the room. She came out during lunch and dinner and ate whatever he made but other than that, she stayed by herself. She went out to the town sometimes in her rented car but that was all.  
  
He moved to the kitchen, opening the fridge and thinking about what he could make for dinner.  
  
A whole chicken sat on the third shelf. Hmm. Grilled chicken would do. And he could reuse the leftover. Good enough. He pulled the chicken out and assembled all the spices he needed. He marinated the chicken and placed it out on the counter for a while. He took the time to check over some mail and an hour later, he put the chicken in for grilling and made his way upstairs to change.  
  
He heard voices coming through the door of Sansa’s room.  
  
“-know but I can’t come home right now. You know that!......Look, this supplier is really important for me. I need to check the quality myself…..You know how much the business means to me, I can’t leave it to anyone else…..Yes, of course…..Yes, I know…...Did you hear anything from them?.....Beyond the wall? That’s-That’s absurd. They’re barely adult. How did they cross the border?.....And you’re sure?......Oh my God…..Thank you so much…….You know how much this means to me Petyr…..Of course, yes…...mmm, I plan on doing everything I promised…..I have to go back to work now…..I will call you tomorrow…..Love you bye.”  
  
His feet remained grounded where it was.  
  
Petyr? _Petyr motherfucking Baelish?_  
  
That little cunt of a man who had an eye on Sansa even back then? That’s who Sansa loved now?  
  
He didn’t know whether he wanted to throw up or smack the door down and ask Sansa for answers.  
  
Before he could dwell more on his next action, he heard her speak again.  
  
“Arya?...Oh my God Arya. He found Rick and Bran. He found them!”  
  
Rickon Stark and Bran Stark?  
  
What in the name of fucking gods was happening here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN 
> 
>  Tags for this chapter will be updated tomorrow. 
> 
> Next chapter may take a while. I am trying to finish chapter 8 and 9 before I post anything else. Also, remember when I said this fic may be 10 chapters long? yeah, so that's not happening because I am 8 chapters in and there is so much left. Please forgive me, kind readers.


	4. Blackbird, won't you fly?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throwback, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title has been inspired from The Beatles song, Blackbird.

  
_Seven years ago, December 2013 ___  
  
“This will sting” he warned her gently.  
  
He saw her fist the bedsheet by the side of her head. She looked back at him and nodded weakly.  
  
He grabbed the cotton ball soaked in antiseptic liquid and touched it to the wounds, cleaning the blood off her skin. He needed her back to be clean before he could start applying medicine on the wounds.. He saw her grip tighten and sushed her gently. This was the first of eight other and he needed her to brace for worse pain.  
  
This is not the first time he is mending her broken feathers.  
  
This is a routine of theirs.  
  
After the first few times, he acquiesced and gave her a blueprint of the Red Keep Mansion. She now knows all the winding ways to his room. Each time Joffrey inflicts pain on her, she waits until the house falls asleep and then makes her way to his room.  
  
The first time that she came, he had some band aid and gauze. Now he has a first aid kit that will rival the emergency ward of a local clinic.  
  
She doesn’t even hesitate anymore. The moment he hears a _knock knock pause knock knock knock pause knock_ on his door, he knows it’s her. He opens and checks the corridor and she moves in and starts divesting the layers of clothing that needs to be removed to gain access to the wound.  
  
Today it looks like she’s been beaten with a belt. There are purple splotches of pain all across her back but the place where the belts have hit repeatedly has led to open wounds. They’re not too deep to require stitches but a little antiseptic ointment would do good.  
  
As he begins cleaning the caked blood off her bag, she starts wincing and whimpering. All her squirming renders him unable to work properly and he knows he needs to distract her.  
  
“Chirp.” he commands.  
  
Whenever she is in too much pain, she speaks to him about her old memories to forget the hurt and the bruises. He lets her tell him about her family and her childhood home simply because it stops her from squirming and makes his job easy.  
  
“I had this big weirwood tree in my garden. Because the north was perpetually cold, the gardens weren’t the coziest of places for a child. But the tree, it was beautiful. In summer, it shone. It stood tall and proud and different. Every other tree in the garden was green and bushy but this tree was red and proud. Like a speck of colour on a monotonous canvas.” she paused to shudder when cleaned the blood from her left flank. “Even in winter, when all other trees gave up, shed all their leaves and bore the burden of the falling snow, this tree did not. It still had its red leaves and it only looked more radiant in the midst of all other dying trees.” she winced as he applied ointment and healing cream on one of the biggest scars. “My father found peace under the tree. Why? I didn’t know. All of us knew that if he wasn’t in the house, he was there. He would sit there no matter the weather. In a simple shirt if it was summer and under seven layers of clothing if it was winter. I never understood the appeal.” She stopped and he noticed tears staining his bed sheet where her head was laid. “Sometimes I close my eyes and I can see myself sitting on the roots of the trees. I can picture myself sitting there and doing nothing at all. I didn’t understand the appeal back then but sometimes all I can think of is the tree.” she gave a mirthless laugh. “For the first sixteen years of my life I never once sat under it and now all I want to do is go back there, sit there for hours at end.”  
  
By the time she is done, he has finished applying medicine on the wound.  
  
He moves away from the bed to keep everything away. He doesn’t console her. There is no point in that. No words will bring her parents back. Or her brother back. They are gone. She can cry and mourn but they aren’t coming back. The dead are gone. The ones alive have to survive.  
  
He sheds his shirt and slacks and changed into sweats and a loose tank top.  
  
He sits down on the bed and lays down next to her. She shifts next until their skins are touching.  
  
While him mending her is not unusual, this, _this_ touchy-feely thing is very new.  
  
It began a few months ago when Sansa had just heard of her brother Robb dying at the hands of paid assassins. She had maintained a stoic demeanor when Joff joyously told her the news but at night, in the confines of his room, she had broken down. She had barreled into his chest, hit him feebly with the little fist of hers and he had simply caged her in his arms and carried her to bed and sat with her cradled on his lap. He had been perplexed the whole time but she seemed to draw comfort from him so he let her be. Since then, she was always touching him, hugging him, clinging to him. And he only sometimes glared at her but mostly just let her do what made her content.  
  
There wasn’t, after all, a lot of people in his life who sought comfort from his touch.  
  
The whole thing about physical affection was new and frankly, the novelty of it scared him.  
  
She shifts around until she is comfortable and then reaches out for his arm. With the bruises that litter her back, he will not be able to hug her properly. So she whines pitifully, drags his arms towards her and curls herself around his bicep. She puts her head next to the bulge on his upper arm, the surface that he knows is hard as stone but is somehow a snuggling pillow for her. She curls around the arm, drapes a leg over his, sighs contentedly and closes her eyes.  
  
For the most part, he doesn’t know what it is between them. They’re co-dependents, trying to survive this fucked up place together. Sometimes when she talks to him or touches him, he feels warm. Like the vices around his heart and squeezing tight, so tight that every dark part of him will threaten to burst. She touches him with no hesitation, confides her deepest sorrows in him, talks to him about her childhood memories and for the life of him, Sandor Clegane doesn’t remember the last time someone treated him like a human.  
  
He’s just The Hound to everyone, a secret service man with half his face burnt, one ear missing, an eye drooped low, a giant killing machine. He’s nothing more to most people.  
  
Except for her.  
  
And he has to protect the only grace he has ever found on this fucked up world.  
  
He looks at her as her fluttering eyelashes settle in slumber,  
  
She took a hard beating today. A real bad one.  
  
Joffrey has been losing his temper a lot lately. The amount of lies he has piled to form his throne are now pricking him in the ass. Somehow Stannis Baratheon has been getting wind of all the secrets that have been swept under the rug. Newspapers are publishing exclusive reports that are taking the political world by fire. As more and more revelation of bribery, wasteful expenditure, assassinations, debauchery and corruption are coming into the open, the crowds outside the Presidential Red Keep Mansion are growing larger. Banners with _BAN THE BASTARD_ are being spotted in large numbers outside and Joffrey is losing his sanity with each passing day. Sandor knows that despite all that has been revealed there is so much more sinister deeds this family has done. He cannot imagine how livid that blond cunt is going to be when more comes out in the open. If the scars on Sansa’s back are an indication, she should be the last person to witness Joffrey’s malice when things get worse.  
  
He turns towards her, holds her the best he can with her injuries and succumbs to sleep, trusting his soldiers instinct to awaken early and deposit her to her room.  
  
…………………….  
  
_January 2014_  
  
Within three months, exactly two weeks after New Years, Varys’ Birds publishes a 20 page article highlighting the stories of several women who were paid to spend a night with Joffrey and either did not survive the night or survived but had extensive medical bills to pay. There are at least eight registered deaths and fifteen injured women, four of them still fighting for their lives. There are names, death certificates, medical records and pictures of smiling pre-Joffrey women. The public, to no one’s surprise, is outraged.  
  
Joffrey and his mother are arguing downstairs and Sandor can hear the distinct sounds of furniture breaking and Joffrey’s shrill voice reverberating off the pillars. He knows Joffrey has reached the peak of his anger because his voice is practically shrill enough to be used as sonar at this point.  
  
He has been assigned to the command centre. The monitor in front of him displays the scenery outside the Red Keep Mansion. He can see the crowds gathered outside the front gate. He can see banners, masks, people with weapons and guns raised in the sky, ready to kill their President. People are climbing on walls, trying to break in. If the security retaliates with violence, it will only get worse.  
  
Sandor notices a man in red throws a fist in the air, scream something and hurl an object over the gate and he knows, deep in his bones, that if that is a bomb, then shit will hit the roof.  
  
_BOOM_  
  
Sandor bolts.  
  
There is probably a protocol for shit like this. For when people break into the fortified walls, hell bent on putting their President’s head on a spike. If it were someone worth serving, he’d protect that person with the last speck of life left in him. But Joffrey is an inhumane cunt and if the mob is out to get him, Sandor might as well open the doors himself.  
  
But he has better things to do.  
  
First to his room, he grabs the bag under his bed.  
  
He knew this day would come and the Lannister-Baratheons would fall. They were icarus and he’d be damned if he let the sun scorch him.  
  
He had saved a couple hundred thousand dragons for getaway. When another person was added to the plan, he saved more and the bag grew heavier.  
  
He hauled the bag on his back and stuffed another with clothes and a few other things he deemed to be important.  
  
Next, he made his way to her room.  
  
A bird needs to fly and a hound will take her away.  
  
He slammed his fist harshly on her door and within a minute, it was pulled open. Sansa looked distraught. Fear evident on her face, dark purple crescent under her eyes and her split lip bleeding anew. She sees him standing there, heaves out a choked sob and lunges forward to hug him.  
Even with the world collapsing around them, he brings her closer to his heart and sets the unburnt side of his face on her head.  
  
Rest of the world be damned. They can all go fuck themselves up their ass.  
  
_She_ is all that matters to him.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to make something very clear, you guys, as the readers are completely allowed to hate on anything a character does, even if they are the protagonist of the story. Please understand that Sandor and Sansa's history has not been explained yet so its obvious that some of their actions may seem weird to you and you may dislike them for it and that is totally okay. I won't take it personally if you think the characters in the story are doing something wrong. As I have always said, I am open to criticism and I will never shut anyone down for saying anything, positive or negative, about my fics. 
> 
> That being said, Joffrey is trash and you are totes allowed to hate on him in the comment. lol.


	5. Drunken Rambling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foot, meet mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drink responsibly, my friends.

  
Before he could knock down the door and carry her over his shoulder away from Petyr Baelish and whatever lies he was telling her, he marched downstairs and stomped to the barn, climbed atop Stranger and let the horse take a few rounds of the land nearby.  
  
He thought he could trample down on his anger but fuck, nothing seemed to help.  
  
He went home and dug around for the bottle of scotch he occasionally drank. He poured himself some and drank it down in one go, grimacing as the burn of the alcohol moved down his throat. He chugged another round before he blew out a large breath.  
  
Petyr Baelish.  
  
Petyr Fucking Baelish.  
  
_Fuck!_  
  
He did not bring her out from the grasp of monsters five years ago just for her to fall into the trap of another.  
  
He did not mend her, shield her, give her his everything, his _name_ so that she could fall in love with that son of a bitch.  
  
There was something else, a thought, nagging at the back of his mind.  
  
_Was he truly that bad that she chose to be with Petyr Baelish instead?_  


And that thought, that fucking thought made him want to hurl something at the wall.  
  
He poured himself another glass and drank it down. The burn of the alcohol soothed his pain. But also ignited his anger.  
  
He wanted to find that man. That man and his ugly ass goatee and beat him to death.  
  
Whatever he had planned for Sansa couldn’t possibly be good. Joffrey was malicious. He drew pleasure from watching others get hurt. Petyr, he was pure evil. Sinister. He had twisted agendas and his only prerogative in life was to become greater, even if it was at the cost of other people.  
  
Somehow, despite having the biggest contribution to the Lannister-Baratheon deeds, he escaped prosecution. While Joffrey and Cersei were hung for their crimes and their accomplices given life sentences, Baelish somehow made it out alive. He handed over mounts of evidence to the investigators, cut himself a deal, remained out of public scrutiny and was absolved of all his contribution to the crimes.  
  
That man was the most cunning and calculating person he’d ever known.  
  
And now he had his claws deep in Sansa and fuck knew what he wanted to do with her.  
  
His mind began growing fuzzier. Thoughts of taking Sansa, yet again, muddled with images of finding Baelish and knocking his teeth out kept playing like litany in his vision.  
  
“Sandor?”  
  
He looked up and there she was. Standing high and mighty. The woman who left him for Petyr fucking Baelish.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
Alright? He was peachy. Absolutely peachy. Did he not look peachy? Of course he was. The only he dared to give his everything to her and she ended up leaving him for the human embodiment of a cactus. Perfectly peachy.  
  
“Do you want me to get you some water?”  
  
Sober people and their condescending tone.  
  
“Fuck off” he replied eloquently. “Go help Petyr or somefin” he said after taking a healthy gulp from the bottle.  
  
“Were you...eavesdropping on me?” she asked, voice laced with judgement.  
  
“Aye so what if I was? Is my house, aint ih?” he slurred. Nope. He was not going to apologize. Not today.  
  
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Sandor.”  
  
“Oh aye. I know pretty well lass. He give you the good lifestyle I couldn’t? Hmm? Bet he has servants do everything for you. Cook, clean, laundry, everything. Bet he makes your life real smooth if you keep sucking that cock of his, ain’t it?” he gave a low laugh at that. “Ain’t that why you left me for him? Because I couldn’t shower you in gold and comfort and he can? So what if he had more criminal charges on his name that the whole of seven kingdoms does? He gives you that uppity lifestyle. Daz all that matters, righ?” he said and took another sip of the burning drink, raising an arm to furiously rub at the traitorous tears leaking out of his eye.  
  
Why was she not saying anything? She should yell at him. Tell him it was all a misunderstanding. Tell him that it wasn’t Petyr she was talking to and that it was some other bloke. Tell him that she didn’t choose someone over him simply because he couldn’t fulfil her needs. Fuck. Why wasn’t she saying anything?  
  
“I am going to take you to bed.”  
  
He shook his head vigorously. He didn’t want his bed. He wanted her, damn it!  
  
He felt the bottle being pried away from him and made a sound of displeasure. He felt himself being tugged and realized that the lithe woman wanted to carry him upstairs. He almost laughed at the notion of such a small woman attempting to carry his 6”7 ass upstairs. He began walking the familiar route to his room, holding on to the railing of the stairs real tight. Once he spotted his bed, he fell on it. His head hit the pillow and he groaned in comfort. He felt shoes being taken off him. He closed his eyes and heard movement around.  
  
He opened his eyes blearily and saw Sansa place something on his bedside table. When she tried moving away, he reached a hand out and grasped her wrist.  
  
When he spoke, his words were muffled by the pillow but it didn't matter and he was not going to raise his head no matter what. It felt too fucking heavy.  
  
“Wah was ih abou me tha you chose him? Wah I so bad, little birdie?”  
  
He fell asleep before he could hear her reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost done writing the fic. I am writing the final few chapters and they are taking a little longer to write than I originally anticipated. I think the fic is going to be about 13 chapters long. Hope it all gets done soon because I have so many fic ideas and I can't wait to start working on them.


	6. Family Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor receives an earful.

  
He groaned into the pillow.  
  
His throat felt dryer than Dorne and as he lifted his head, a pounding headache made him want to dig deeper into the pillow and sleep till the next century.  
  
He blinked his eyes open and a glass of water was lying on the table. He reached out to grab the glass and noticed a note under it. _Eat the medicine, drink the water, freshen up and then come down. We need to talk._ The neat cursive fueled his brain to scamper around for some sense as to what exactly did he do last night.  
  
It all came back to him and fuck!  
  
Fuck! What had he done?  
  
……………..  
  
He tiptoed to the rear door when a voice called out from the living room.  
  
“Don’t you dare Sandor Duncan Clegane.”  
  
He flinched at the use of his full name and rolled his shoulders before he turned around to her.  
  
“Listen woman, so I said shit last night. Sue me. I have work to do and don’t have time-”  
  
“You think I am going to let you walk away after those vile things you accused me of? Drunk or not, you will not get away with speaking to me that way again”  
  
“What do you want me to do then? Listen to your sob story?” he asked, crossing his arms on his chest.  
  
“Sit. Down. Now.” she said in a commanding voice he had never heard before.  
  
He walked lazily to the couch opposite to her and sat and tapped his foot on the floor impatiently.  
  
“After I went away from here, I went home. Or what was left of it, at least. My house was vandalized and the house staff we had escaped. The place was in complete ruins. So I was homeless despite having a home. Thankfully some of the people in the city knew of my House and they helped me stand on my own two feet.” she sighed heavily as if remembering old things. “It wasn’t …. Easy, to say the least. It was so hard trying to survive on people’s kindness and I worked hard, too hard and started earning from a little boutique I opened up. I was expanding my business when I ran into Petyr.”  
  
He grimaced at the name and she must have looked up and seen his expression because she had a small smirk playing on her lips.  
  
“Believe me, I wanted to shoot him where he stood. Wanted to reach out and grab him by the throat and strangle him to death. Watch his face become all blue and black as he ran out of breath.”  
  
He raised a brow at the graphic description of her thoughts but she moved past it and kept talking.  
  
“But he was more use to me alive. He said something about seeing my mother in me and how he wanted to take me out and all that. He said he would do anything for me. I knew about the crush he had on my mother and the fact that he saw me as a vessel for his perverted pleasure to be sated made my blood boil.” she took a pause before continuing. “But I had so much more working for me. I was very close to finding my sister through my contacts across the Narrow Sea but I was clueless about what happened to my brothers. Jon and I had rekindled but his contacts in the North gave him varying reports of our brother’s whereabouts. I knew Petyr was trying to fill the power vacuum in the North. The Bolton’s position in the North Council was weak and I knew Petyr would somehow use me to gain a powerful ally in the North. The Stark name still evokes a lot of respect North of the Twins.”  
  
She continued speaking but his mind caught up to her words slowly. She was homeless? Did she find Arya? She found Jon? What was going on?  
  
“I needed his contacts to find my brothers. First I thought they were dead. But the Umbers later informed me that they had escaped when my house was vandalized. I don’t know where they are. Rickon must be 15 now and Bran barely 19. I don’t know who is taking care of them, who is feeding them. I don’t know in what condition they live. They could be out there struggling to stay alive. With my parents gone, I am supposed to take care of them and I don’t even know where they are! I want them home, Sandor. I want us all home.”  
  
And just then, in front of him, was the Sansa he knew. The Sansa who craved for family and for her home and for the red weirwood tree.  
  
“So I pretended. I pretended to love him and I used his contacts for my own benefit. I found Arya a year and a half ago. Couldn’t fly out to meet her because it would raise red flags. So I contact her and Jon through burner phones. They are in the North, searching for Rick and Bran. I do most of these things through my company contact. Petyr barely ever looks into my company. He doesn’t think that for someone who comes from a noble house, ‘sewing’ is an appropriate career. I found Arya but with Rick and Bran, we keep running into dead ends. Arya and Jon are somewhere out there and I can’t even meet him. Do you know how painful it is to know your family is close by but not being able to touch them and meet them and bring them in your arms and never leave?”  
  
She had begun crying by the end of it and he sat patiently, waiting for her to finish.  
  
“I need Petyr until I can find my brothers. And I think he knows it now. Because he keeps looking into my finances. I was supposed to inherit all the Stark wealth once I turned 25 but because I am not Sansa _Minisa Stark_ anymore, that money didn’t come down to me automatically. Petyr has been hitting some lows in his business because of Daenerys Targaryen’s recent anti-trafficking laws. He is losing money and is asking me to marry him soon and I know its because he needs my inheritance. So I need to take it away and put the money in an offshore bank under Jon’s name. I went to the court to revert my name and take the money but they said they need my divorce files and that’s when I realized that the fools we were, we never got a divorce. Meanwhile, Petyr has been going crazy and he’s getting closer to finding out about you and Arya and Jon and my brain will burst with the pressure of keeping secrets and pretending to be absolutely and maddeningly in love with him.”  
  
Her tears were flowing freely now and her shoulders shaking with vigour.  
  
“You don’t know how vile it makes me feel when he touches me. I keep him satisfied with kisses and touches. Told him I wanted to remain a virgin until marriage. But he is growing impatient. He is always watching me, touching me, leering at me. And I just want my family back so that I can leave him once and for all. He runs a human trafficking ring and I have enough proof to have any court grant him three life sentences but I can’t go public until my brothers are back home. And he’s found them. I promised I would marry him when they came home and he is rushing and finding them so that he can marry me and use my name and use the 700 billion dragons I am to inherit.”  
  
She wiped her eyes hard and continued.  
  
“I am trying to be as smart and calculating as I can but staying a step ahead of him is hard. But I am trying. I really am. But it is so hard and I spend too many nights crying and too much time thinking of what my mother would have said about me whoring myself out. I don’t even care about the money, Sandor. I honestly don’t. You know no idea how many nights I have spent sleeping on cots and eating leftovers. It took months before my designs began becoming popular and I could renovate one of the smaller rooms and the adjoining washroom in my parent’s manor. I grew up in a sprawling house with three wings and eighteen rooms and I can renovate the whole place but it won’t mean anything unless I have people to live in it. I just want my family. I want Rickon to go to school, I want Bran to go to university, I want to watch Arya become her own person, I want to walk Jon down the aisle when he finally gets the guts to ask his boyfriend to marry him. It’s so hard, Sandor. I hate Petyr. I hate his minty breath and his thin hands. I hate him but I need him. You have no idea what I have been through and you have no right to judge me for things that even I _hate_ about myself”  
  
She buried her face in her hands and began crying, her shoulders shaking from the force of her grief.  
  
Instinct from ages ago made him rush to her side. He sat next to her and gathered her trembling form in his grasp. He bought her closer and swung her lightly. His body apparently remembered just how to calm her. After a while, her hands fell away from her face to grasp his bicep and she clung on to him, crying with vigour.  
  
God. What had she gone through?  
  
He closed his eyes, regret shaming his being. He accused her of all those things when she’d just been trying to get her family back. He suddenly felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.  
  
He buried his nose in her hair and whispered apologies.  
  
“I am so sorry, Little Bird.”  
  
He wished he could go back to last night. He would have switched the scotch for water and talked things out with her. But he had fucked up, royally at that; he couldn’t change what he had done. For now, he had an armful of Sansa and two Starks roaming out in the cold tundra up North and Sandor knew, deep in his bones, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t help the Stark siblings reunite.  
  
He would help her reunite with her family. He would help her put Petyr behind bars for good. He would be there for her. Maybe at the end of it he would have her gratitude and forgiveness.  
  
He would sign the divorce papers and come back home to his barn and his life.  
  
He would box up all memories of her, all the snippets of their time, all their moments of running away and surviving annihilation together. He would cherish it all and hope to all the fucking gods that he move on.  
  
For now, he would help her.  
  
It was always about her.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like writing fics where Sansa is always the damsel in distress. Sansa has struggled and matured as a person and baby girl needs no man to get her shit done. She obviously needs other people's help to bring everything to fruition but she built her own business, found her sister, made up with her brother and is trying to trump Petyr. Y'all see Sandor making googly eyes at his strong woman? 
> 
> On another note, I have finally figured out a rough outline for the last few chapters and hopefully everything will move on smoothly.


	7. On The Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throwback part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I was struggling with chapter 12 and was hit with a killer headache over the weekend. Updates will probably be twice a week now because I have started working on another story and plan on uploading that once a week.

_Six years ago, February 2014_  
  
They stopped at a dingy motel for the night.  
  
They had been in the car for four days straight before Sandor finally grew tired of Sansa begging for a bed and gave up and got a motel room.  
  
“Sandor, there’s no more hot water” a voice informed through the flimsy door of the washroom.  
  
“You are not supposed to fucking shower for more than ten minutes. This ain’t the Red Keep.” he informed her, distracted as he was trying to count all the bullets he was carrying.  
  
“Sorry” a feeble voice replied and he rolled his eyes.  
  
He switched on the television to gain some sense of what was happening in the town they left behind.  
  
 _“- and today, with the verdict of Cersei Baratheon and Joffrey Baratheon being laid down, the attorneys are scrambling to find those responsible for helping them in the execution of the 137 crimes the mother and the son are charged with. Joffrey Baratheon had an additional of 28 counts of muder, intent to muder, assault and rape on his name while Mrs Baratheon had 45 counts of bribery, money laundering, assault, battery and obstruction of justice, among others on her. Several of their ministers and assistants are also being charged with sentence ranging from 20 years behind bars to life sentences. Several of the secret service agents are thought to have run from the scene of chaos that erupted two weeks ago. They are however, not being held responsible because they served a government office independent from the President’s post. They are however, being urged to submit any proof they have to the attorneys. Several other people, who are closely tied to the crimes are unaccounted for. Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark being prominent among them. There are reports of Mr Lannister being spotted in Lys but there is no confirmation of the same. Miss Stark is seen as an accomplice and has not been spotted since the gala the Baratheons hosted on 23rd of September, almost four months ago. Miss Stark, Mr Baratheon’s fiancee was apparently residing in the Mansion. It is speculated that she could have a hand in the cri-”_  
  
“They think I was involved?” Sansa asked with a trembling voice from behind him.  
  
He immediately muted the television and turned back to her.  
  
“You were never taken out in public a lot. For all the people know, you were his fiancee and just as evil as him.”  
  
“But I’m not. I had nothing to do with him” she said in a trembling voice, hugging her towel close to her chest, his sweatshirt and the cheap sweats looking odd on her.  
  
He pulled her down on the bed and crouched down on the floor in front of her.  
  
“Listen girl. They don’t know you! Stop paying attention to the accusations and pay attention to the details. The media doesn’t know much beyond you than your name, appearance and your family’s legal information. As long as you keep dying that hair and wear run down clothes, you will be hidden well enough.”  
  
She gulped and nodded at him. She moved down from the bed and plopped herself on his lap. He grunted and moved them both to the bed, moving around until he was reclining against the headboard with Sansa curled in a ball on his lap. He brushed a kiss on her forehead and rocked her gently from side to side. To an outsider, it would look like he had done a crash course on How to Provide Comfort 101 but in truth, when it came to her, he somehow, on instinct, knew how to hold her and soothe her.  
  
“Now sleep. I paid 25 dragons for this bed. We rest for two days and then we are off again. And this time, I ain’t stopping no matter how much you complain until we are hundred of miles away from King’s Landing. You hear me?”  
  
In the dead of the night, a sleeping Sansa tucked under his chin, he began thinking of ways to get her name off the grid.  
  
……………………  
  
 _May 2014_  
  
She was sitting on the floor of the farthest aisle in the public library, a book open on her lap.  
  
“Come on” he whispered and she obediently left the book on a rack above and followed him out. He drove them to a diner. After placing their order, he glanced around for anyone suspicious.  
  
The Quiet Isle wasn't a place where many criminals came. Over the years, the obscure island had come a lucrative vacation spot. Men in polo shirts and women with sunglasses perched on their head sat with pesky kids. Nothing suspicious then.  
  
“I spoke to Ray and he thinks there might be a way to get you off the grid.” he informed her in a whisper.  
  
“Really?” she asked, her voice a little loud.  
  
“The public is out looking for Sansa Minisa Stark, Joffrey Baratheon’s fiancee.” she winced at the reminder and unconsciously began chewing lightly on her thumb. “They think you helped him. At the least that you knew all their crimes and decided to stay quiet about it. It’s nothing, but the public is really angry and they are looking to vent. If we change your name, it may help us take you off the grid. We need people to hit a dead end when they start looking for Sansa Stark.”  
  
“So, um, what now? We change my name?” she asked, her fingers fiddling with the sleeves of her cheap shirt.  
  
“Maybe. But when this all dies down, you need to have a chance to revert your name. You need to go back to being Sansa Stark or you’d close claim to everything your family owns.”  
  
“So, just change the last name then?” she asked, her bird brain finally catching up.  
  
“Yeah”  
  
“How do we do that?” she asked.  
  
“Marry me.”  
  
“WHAT!” she yelled, turning a few heads towards them and shocking their waitress who was placing their orders on the table.  
  
He gave her a death stare and she ducked her head in shame. The waitress placed their order on the table and everyone else went back to their business.  
  
“I know you don’t want to be married to my ugly face but stop screaming. We are supposed to be incognito.” he gritted between his teeth. “Look, my records are buried six feet under red tape bureaucracy. Secret Service personnel details are not public record. Take my last name and change your middle name. Ray will get us married in the sept on the shore and his contacts will get you documents. It will all be legal process and the day you want to change it back, you can. We need to file for a divorce and it’ll be done.”  
  
“Is there no other way?” she asked.  
  
The tiredness of having to drive for hours at end, sleeping in crappy hotels and showering in cold water got to him. He understood that she was used to luxury and despite being abused by the Baratheons, she lived a largely excessive lifestyle there. He knew she wasn’t used to moving around like a poor nomad but he wasn’t too damn it! He was going through all this trouble, evading police and security checks just to save her ass and the least she could do was be thankful and not blanch from the prospect of sharing his last name.  
  
“Listen here, princess.” he said, calling the nickname she hated the most because he wanted to get it through her thick skull. “I have looked at all other options. Your brother Jon is still serving and contacting him could involve the government and we would be exposed. Fuck knows where your sister is and the last we knew, your younger brothers are unaccounted for. Do you have any idea how many hours I have spent behind the wheel, looking for the best option for you, where you get to spend the rest of your life happy? We drove across three kingdoms trying to look for a way and believe me when I say that this is the last resort.”  
  
She gave him a stern nod. “Alright. Let’s do it.”  
  
Three days later Sansa Minisa Stark became Sansa Elise Clegane. It was a no nonsense affair. They went to the sept at 11 am, Ray and his understudy their witnesses, signed the paper, ate lunch and left town.  
  
Why she chose his mother’s name as her middle name, he didn’t know.  
  
As he drove off towards his parent’s abandoned property, his wife sleeping in the backseat, he hoped that after all the weeks of running, he could live peacefully for a while.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this is AU, let's please, pretty please, pretend like the laws can be twisted to suit the storyline.


	8. Author's notes

5th July, 2019

 

 Hey guys, 

 

So I just wanted to make an announcement with regards to this fic. 

 

 

Whenever I write something, I usually try to write down as many chapters as I can before I begin posting the story. I have only posted seven chapters but I have finished writing 13 out of 14 chapters. However, whenever I read the chapters, I feel like something is missing in them. I don't update chapters unless I am one hundred percent happy with how it is and I feel like chapter 9 onwards, I can't feel that anymore. I really don't know how to explain this but I feel like something is missing in those chapters, a little spark, if you will. And I really, really don't want to upload half-assed chapters out there. Because this story is so close to an end, I will not abandon it. I will take a break for a week or so and get back to it with a fresh mind. I really don't want to leave this story incomplete. I will definitely get back to it and improve the chapters until I feel like its the best that I can do.

 

Just to reiterate, this story will not be abandoned. I will get back to it. I just want to improve the chapters and I need some time for that. 

 

I am really sorry if I have disappointed anyone. 

 

I hope you guys will understand. 

 

All the love, 

Your local Indian trashcan, 

Shee. x 

**Author's Note:**

> I plan on uploading twice a week, if not more. 
> 
> Comments and Criticisms are welcome.  
> If you have questions, I'd be more than happy to reply. 
> 
> Love,  
> Shee. x


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